Aiwendil,
Mark and
HI: very interesting take on the relation of Art and Nature here. I agree with HI, however, that in ME Nature (ie the created world) takes 'precedence' over Art (ie the practice of the created beings who form a part of Nature). In his works, I think that Tolkien recovered a much more substantive and meaningful conception of Nature: not just trees and hills and all the stuff 'out there' or 'outside' the human, but the sum total of creation, which includes humanity and our own acts of creation, or Art.
Shakespeare put it best in
The Winter's Tale:
Quote:
Yet nature is made better by no mean
But nature makes that mean; so over that art
Which you say adds to nature, is an art
That nature makes.
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This is why things like Rings and Barrow-Wights (which are the result of Art, be it the art of Ringmaking or the art of magic) are irrelevant to Tom and Goldberry, who embody the Nature from which all Arts spring.
Rimbaud: I like your football analogy for the
eucatastrophe of Tom's appearance, not in the least because it shows the ultimate paradox of Tolkien's attempt to embody nature: Tom's existence as a part of nature is made possible only through Tolkien's art!